By Ivonne Sheen

The sound vibrations you feel in a techno rave can be described as intense, kind of violent, raw, but mainly cathartic (to the ones who enjoy it), like the feeling of the drummer who opens this film. Rage addresses Acid Techno music and the underground culture around it. The film sets a dialogue about Anarchy and Techno which comes and goes from theoretical talks to sensorial documentary with found footage and lots of music. Through an anarchic narrative we are immersed in a ecosystem of philosophical and performative interviews and hardcore beats, which gives us an organic point of view of social phenomenons against the system, such as Anarchy and Techno.

Dominique Lohlé and Guy-Marc Hinant decide to start from the top, from the mind. First of all, we are introduced to the concept of Anarchism and the idea of being anarchists. Defined as an ideal utopia because it’s based in chaos, which for the philosophical tradition, is the origin of everything. Nature works in organic chaos because it gathers all its different elements together in a way that is possible to cohabit together, this is what we know as ecosystem, in which all the elements keep their complex unique nature. But in matters of society, anarchists have survived in small groups, in small communities, since the complexity of humans beings and history makes it almost impossible to achieve that goal, of living in an society that functions as an alive organism, open to any possible change.

In England, Techno music was born in an skinhead environment, a working class community full of Punk and Anarchism. Brandon Spivey and Richi Anderson tell us how everything started for them, hidden in the shadow of a dark room, we get to listen with them their favorite records and the ones they made. By their testimonies and music demonstrations, we get to listen and therefore to feel this organic chaos Anarchism is all about. Hidden in underground venues, youth decided to gather together and put their feelings to the limit, let them be at their fullest. The hardcore beats, and the sudden different sounds, gives a sense of an eternal present, its really hard to tell when a song has started and has finished, and what only matters is happening in that precise moment. We also get to learn the complexity of the Roland TB-303 by a funny test Guy-Marc Hinant makes, so we understand that Techno also has to do with some technological knowledge and musical intuition.

Rage lets us understand that art, in this case music, is part of a cultural context, so it could be read through the eyes of an ideology because it’s based in one (consciously or unconsciously). An occasion to think about the direct relations between history, philosophy and art. Nevertheless, by the end of this essay, Lohlé and Hinant, throw us in a audiovisual sensorial testimony of the origin of Underground Techno. Far away from all the theories and explanations, we become part of a group of kids playing with fireworks, completely excited, living the moment the fireworks last, to immediately find us immersed in a techno rave, with a similar feeling as the kids had, full of excitement and self-absorption trough music.

In the DOX:AWARD section
Directed by:  Guy-Marc Hinant and Dominique Lohlé.
Film editors: Aurélien Doyen, Guy-Marc Hinant, Dominique Lohlé.
Producer: Marc Goyens, Tomas Leyers, Julien Sigalas
Direction of Photography: Carolien Den Hond, Jan-Kees Dibbets, Son Doan  (as Hoang-Son Doan), Virginie Gourmel, Didier Guillain       , Sébastien Koeppel, Nicolas Lebecque, Aurelie Leporcq, Saïd Oudrassi
Sound: Laszlo Umbreit, Amélie Canini
Production Company: CBA, Minds Meet, Stempel
Belgium, 2017